Brazil backs 'Guardians of the Amazon' in their war on loggers

By Karla Mendes

24 May 2018 — 3:02pm

Rio de Janeiro: In a rare move, Brazil is providing armed back-up to indigenous people protecting the world's most threatened tribe from illegal loggers, a decision that campaigners lauded as a "landmark" in efforts to halt deforestation in the Amazon.

Officials moved in to the Brazilian rainforest after a group of from the Guajajara tribe, who call themselves The Guardians of the Amazon, seized a logging gang and burnt their truck, rights group Survival International said.

A soldier stands guard in front of a truck loaded with logs that were illegally cut from the Amazon rain forest.Credit:AP/File

"Over the weekend, a team of Ibama [Brazil's environmental protection agency] and environmental military police arrived in response to The Guardians' call for help," said Sarah Shenker, a senior campaigner with Survival.

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"That was a landmark moment, I would say, because The Guardians hardly ever receive support," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

South America's largest country is grappling with scores of deadly land conflicts, illustrating the tensions between preserving indigenous culture and economic development.

The Arariboia area in north-east Brazil is home to the Awa indians, several hundred hunter-gatherers described by Survival International as the most threatened tribe in the world because they have nowhere to retreat to if their forest is cut down.

A man is seen on a raft loaded with confiscated logs that were illegally cut from the Amazon rain forest.Credit:AP

The government has struggled to protect the vast territory amid budget cuts and increasing political pressure to opening up indigenous reserves to mining, Survival said.

A spokesman at Ibama declined to comment on the ongoing operation. The indigenous affairs agency, Funai, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Brazil's remote tribes depend on large areas of unspoiled forest land to hunt animals and gather the food they need to survive.

They are particularly vulnerable when their land rights are threatened because they lack the natural immunity to diseases that are carried by outsiders.

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The joint patrol is moving into another area where The Guardians found a second loggers' camp, Shenker said. Three Guardians were killed by loggers in 2016 and they often face death threats and arson attacks, she said.